


Explorers

by albabutter



Category: The Mummy (1999)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10058876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albabutter/pseuds/albabutter
Summary: She turns back to Ardeth.“We were there for academic pursuits-”“Treasure hunting,” O’Connell interjects.“And things got a bit out of hand.” She’s staring at him and nodding quite earnestly and doesn’t seem to realize that her hands are still resting on his face.“So, naturally, you traveled here.”“We need a place to lay low,” O’Connell grunts.“Recuperate!” Evelyn snaps, and they have a moment where they seem to argue silently, and Ardeth reaches up to take her hands in his and breaks the tension.





	

He makes it home more or less in one piece on a stolen camel with a bag of stolen treasure. He keeps the camel and drags the bag in front of the other commanders who seem just as unimpressed as he feels. They barely glance at it, more focused on staring at him until it all makes sense. He doesn’t have any answers; he’s just as lost as them.

Do they congratulate him for defeating the creature or punish him for allowing him to be woken in the first place?

His men have no such compunctions. They clap him on the back and brag on his behalf. They mourn their dead and celebrate their living. They sleep a little sounder, joke a little easier, and if they doubt him at all, then they keep it to themselves. He’s pressed for stories by children and elders both, for adventure, for knowledge, for posterity. It doesn’t bother him. Storytelling was his mother’s gift, one that he inherited. The children scream at the right parts, and the elders wrinkle their noses when he mentions O’Connell and Evelyn. Brave outsiders who helped defeat the creature, but outsiders nonetheless. Ardeth doesn’t gloss over them.

When he was younger, he might have been tempted to embellish, to make himself the sole hero. But that urge is non-existent, wiped away by age and experience and exhaustion. So he talks about them--about how O’Connell fights as well as any of their warriors, that he survived the desert after all. About Evelyn, how she figured out what no one else had in a millennia. How she had more respect for their history than some of their own kind. He thinks about the cowardly one who had come to them first seeking help. The Egyptologist who had known the story of the curse, who had known better and kept digging anyways. He had come to them a stuttering, stumbling mess, clutching the black book to his chest like it was a talisman instead of the curse it was. They can barely understand him through the ranting and the pleading, but they don’t need to. They’re wading through locusts, shouting to be heard over the rasping and chittering that can only mean one thing.

The Egyptologist is quick to lay the blame.

“It was that woman!” he spits, partially to be heard, but mostly out of anger. “She stole it from me!”

Ardeth nods. “After you stole it from its resting place.” It isn’t a question, and the Egyptologist doesn’t have an answer. He tries anyways.

“But she found the creature, and she has the key, and -”

Ardeth holds up a hand. “Was she in the room when you opened the chest?”

He shakes his head.

“Then I wouldn’t worry about her.”

He’s too busy at the time to give the woman much thought. But later, when he’s hovering over her shoulder, urging her to read faster, he remembers the Egyptologist, the way he spat out her name and called her useless. When they find the golden book exactly where she said it would be, he has a moment of secondhand pride that this so called useless woman would survive where hundreds before had died. Whatever pity he has for the Egyptologist disappears when the creature takes her, when he has to hold O’Connell back and keep him alive long enough to fight again and win. He isn’t sure what he thought fighting the creature would be like, but when O’Connell pulls him off the wing of a broken plane and he pulls O’Connell out of the quicksand, he knows it wasn’t this. He wonders if that’s what has the commanders so disquieted. Three thousand years spent training and storytelling, passing down the swords and burdens of their ancestors for the sake of a hidden war they might never fight. And then two strangers stumble across their cursed heritage and emerge the unscathed victors. He’s as relieved as they are when they defeat the creature, but he feels bereft in a way that he doubts they would understand.

Every generation before him had lived prepared and died untested. Nobody wanted the creature to wake, but it was foretold as inevitable, and every generation that the creature laid undisturbed, the more convinced the warriors would become that it would be their fight. Ardeth’s a seasoned warrior, but he hadn’t been immune to those thoughts either. Excitement for the fight, cockiness that they would be the victors, convinced of their destiny. Until it was fulfilled by someone else. He’s not angry nor is he envious; there was more to being a med-jai than delusions of heroism. But he feels oddly lost, restless, maybe, and he realizes that for the first time in his life, he has no purpose, no driving force that had him patrolling the ruins and training in the heat past the point of exhaustion. He wouldn’t say he feels free because he never felt trapped in the first place. But he feels unsure, at odds with himself for the first time in his life. He wonders if that is what the commanders sense, that uncertainty that threatens to disrupt their way of life. Or maybe, he thinks, they’re just as lost as he is.

He’s surprised when they show up. He shouldn’t be, but he is. They show up without warning, and Ardeth finds himself somewhere between irritated and amused as he struggles to explain to the elders why they’re there. O’Connell is cautious, keeps his hands away from his pistols still strapped to his body and keeps his eyes from lingering on any face for too long, aware that their presence is at best unexpected and at worst unwelcome. Evelyn is oblivious, perhaps willfully so, smiling at every person in her path, a few “how do you do’s” tumbling out of her mouth. If she notices the tension they cause, then she ignores it. Her eyes sweep over the camp, enraptured, taking in every detail, every face, searching until they land on him. Her smile, if anything, widens. Behind her, O’Connell seems to relax, and they both move towards him with a confidence that surprises the crowd around them. His tribe turns to watch him, to gage his reaction, and he freezes for a moment, caught between logic and instinct, but Evelyn makes the decision for him. Her embrace is quick but intense, and her hands linger on his face as she inspects him.

“Let the man breathe, Evy,” O’Connell says, exasperated.

“Are you alright?” she asks, “I mean obviously you’re alive, but Rick told he about how he used the dynamite and blew you up-” she turns and glares at O’Connell who shrugs in return, “-and burn wounds can be quite nasty you know, very prone to infection. You know I read-”

Ardeth stops her. “You’re a bit late.”

She looks a little flustered.

“Well, yes. Quite a bit late. But in my defense, I didn’t hear the full story until much later.”

O’Connell receives another dirty look, and he rolls his eyes. “You’re not gonna tell him about the mess in Thebes? About how you turned a three day trip into a month long con-”

“I’ll have you know, O’Connell, that before I met you I had never been involved in a gunfight in my entire life. You’re the one who seems to think that a brawl is the answer for everything.”

She turns back to Ardeth.

“We were there for academic pursuits-”

“Treasure hunting,” O’Connell interjects.

“And things got a bit out of hand.” She’s staring at him and nodding quite earnestly and doesn’t seem to realize that her hands are still resting on his face.

“So, naturally, you traveled here.”

“We need a place to lay low,” O’Connell grunts.

“Recuperate!” Evelyn snaps, and they have a moment where they seem to argue silently, and Ardeth reaches up to take her hands in his and breaks the tension.

“Evelyn, you have my word that no harm will come to you while you are here. You are safe.” 

Her face flushes, and she squeezes his hands before lacing their fingers together.

“However,” he continues, “the same cannot be said of him.”

They both turn to O’Connell who looks outraged and glares at Evelyn who’s grinning in a way that makes his neck feel warm.

“Why the hell not?”

Ardeth shrugs. “We do not harbor warmongers, deserters, or thieves.”

“Thief!” O’Connell points at Evelyn immediately.

“Borrower,” she replied smugly. “Now, is there anything to eat? I’m starving. The warmongering, deserting thief actually tried to force feed me a scorpion. Also, I want to hear the story from your perspective please. Obviously, my prior source has been grossly biased.”

They start squabbling again as he leads them to where dinner is being prepared, caught up in their whirlwind like no time has passed. But he still sees the appraising look his sister gives them, and when their eyes meet, the smirk she gives him tells him exactly who will be spreading the gossip by the fire tonight. He tries to hide the grimace on his face, which is nothing compared to the blush he feels creeping up his neck. Judging from how hard she starts to laugh, he’s unable to hide either. He ignores her and drags his friends through the camp faster than he should. If they notice, they don’t mention it. Evelyn is unstoppable, breaking off mid-sentence to inspect some particular aspect of camp life, quick to lend a hand or ask a question. She doesn’t seem to realize how unusual the situation is, unaware of the questioning looks aimed at Ardeth or the way some of his fellow warriors are slowly tracking them through the camp. O’Connell knows though. He still keeps his hands away from his weapons, and he defers to Ardeth, but he keeps his eyes on Evelyn and waits for her whenever she steps off the path. He’s cautious, but he’s not tense, and he follows Ardeth with a certainty he usually sees with men who have trained with him. The other warriors notice it as well, becoming more relaxed as Evelyn ropes him into holding a half-dozen camels still as she wrestles their riding blankets off and hands them to the girls who just finished riding. They very blatantly don’t belong, and they don’t try to blend in. They move with a sense of purpose, a respect that his people can recognize or at the very least take advantage of, and he begins to worry a bit less. But then he catches a glimpse of his sister surrounded by half of their cousins, and the embarrassed dread from earlier comes back, and he can’t help the annoyed curse that slips out of his mouth. O’Connell hears him and moves in front of him, hand reaching up to rest on his shoulder.

“Are you sure it’s okay if we stay here? We exaggerated a bit. Nobody’s coming after us, and we’ll be okay to leave. I think Evy just needed to come back, and she didn’t think it through. If you need us to leave, we will. Say the word.”

O’Connell is sincere, his voice low and serious, and Ardeth feels a knot unwind in his chest. He mirrors O’Connell’s gesture and rests his hand on his shoulder.

“My friend, wherever I am, you are welcome.”

O’Connell skims his face before nodding and clapping him on the back.

“Good man. Now let’s go get Evelyn before she trades me in for a camel and a half finished book written a thousand years ago by somebody no one has ever heard of.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, O’Connell. They would never trade a camel for you; they smell better.”

Ardeth smiles, but O’Connell looks apprehensive.

“If you value your life, don’t say that to Evy. When we left Thebes, she yelled at me for a full hour about the sacrifice of hygiene for the sake of adventure. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Ardeth glances over to where Evelyn is aggressively attempting to haggle for fresh clothes.

“Noted.”

* * *

 He doesn’t figure out why they’re really there until a fortnight later. The camp as a whole seems to have accepted them as a bizarre but ultimately benign presence, and whatever gossip he knows is flying around doesn’t seem to have reached the O’Connell’s. He’s not sure they’re married, but they’re attached at the hip and both answer to the name, so he doesn’t think it makes a difference. They’ve settled in at the edge of the camp near his own tent, and they retire when he does. They don’t sleep though, preferring to build their own fire and talk long into the night. Ardeth learns to leave them alone when they do this. O’Connell spends most of his time sparring with the younger warriors, teaching them every dirty trick ever used in a street fight; they adore him. Evelyn spends her days running around the camp, trading whatever stories she has with the elders and children alike. Their time by the fire is the only time they spend together without the outside distractions of a village. Ardeth falls asleep before them, lulled to sleep by their quiet murmuring. He’s spent his entire life surrounded by a camp full of people, with all the noise and safety it offered, so he was a harder sleeper than was probably wise. So he’s startled when he jolts out of a deep sleep by a loud cry. His hands are on his sword, and he’s halfway out his tent before he realizes that they’re not under attack. He waits for a moment, tense as he takes in the sleeping camp. He hears it again, this time quieter, more of a whimper, and he realizes it’s coming from the O’Connell’s tent. He debates for a moment. O’Connell is nowhere to be seen, and he assumes that he has kept Evelyn company for the night. Ardeth wasn’t ignorant about what people got up to in the middle of the night, and a lifetime in the camp had taught him the value of privacy, as rare as it could be found. He lowers his sword and turns to go back to his bedroll, but he’s interrupted by Evelyn as she bursts out of her tent, gasping for air and stumbling out into the open sand. Ardeth tears after her, but an arm grips his wrist and pulls him back. He whirls around, bringing his sword dangerously close to O’Connell’s neck. O’Connell doesn’t loosen his grip on him, and Ardeth doesn’t lower his sword. O’Connell stares at him for a moment before gesturing behind him with a tilt of his chin.

“Nightmares. She’s been having them for months.”

“The creature?” he asks.

O’Connell nods, letting go of him, and Ardeth lowers his sword.

“She doesn’t like to talk about it. She thinks that it isn’t over. It’s why we’re here. She wants to go back, wants to make sure he’s gone. I told her all we’d find was sand and blood, but she said that’s what I said last time. I guess she needs to see it herself. If she can see it, she can touch it, then it’s real.”

“What do you think?” 

O’Connell rolls his shoulders, and Ardeth realizes he’s shirtless. He disregards it just as quickly.

“I think I’ll never get another night of decent sleep if we don’t go check it out.”

“We can leave at dawn.”

O’Connell raises a brow. “We?”

Ardeth raises a brow of his own. “We all know what happened the last time outsiders were allowed into the city of the dead alone. I’ll go with you, make sure no one wakes the dead or steals anymore priceless treasures.”

“Good! Thanks for volunteering. Since you’re part of the team, you can be the one to go calm her down. See you at dawn.” O’Connell smacks his shoulder and disappears into the tent, leaving Ardeth to trek after Evelyn.

She hasn’t gone far. She’s slumped over her knees on a sand dune, and Ardeth slips in next to her quietly. He reaches out to touch her arm, trying not to startle her, but she raises her head before he can. The moon is almost full, and the night is clear, so it’s easy to see that she’s been crying. He opens his mouth to say something, although what he’s not sure. His sister cried a fair amount, but it was always safer to stay quiet when she did. Perhaps Evelyn is the same because she raises a hand to quiet him. She tilts her head, listening. The desert is deceptive, louder at night than during the day. There are a thousand and one creatures coming out of their hideaways, rustling and chirping overwhelmed only by the howl of the wind. But he understands. She’s listening for locusts, ears strained for the slightest whisper of wings. But it never comes, and Ardeth welcomes the cold wind on his skin to get rid of the sensation of a thousand legs itching and crawling between the folds of his robes. Evelyn seems to relax, leaning against her knees once more. He thinks she might be crying again, but her voice is steady when she speaks.

“It’s my fault you know. Rick says that it’s not, that there was always going to be somebody who starts poking around in things they shouldn’t; I just got unlucky. But he’s wrong. I stole the book, I woke the creature, I started all of this. It’s not luck. It’s me. It’s my fault.”

 “I know.”

She looks at him, a little surprised. She expects him to deny it, maybe. But that is not his place, and he’s not sure it’s what she really needs to hear.

“You didn’t believe in the curse, and you didn’t mean to hurt people. But you did. You opened the box, Pandora.”

“You know about Pandora?” she asks incredulously.

He slants her a look that tells her exactly where to shove her condescending question, and she has the good sense to look embarrassed.

“You took a chance. And so did they. You couldn’t have woken the creature if they hadn’t of opened the chest. And we couldn’t have killed him without you.”

They sit in silence for a moment.

“What if I bring him back?”

He looks at her. “Did you grab the black book when no one was looking?”

He’s joking, but she doesn’t crack a smile. “I remember the words. All of them. And I talk in my sleep. What if I say it in my sleep? We won’t even know until it’s too late.”

“You’re not raising the dead in your sleep.”

“But I could,” she presses.

He shakes his head. “I doubt it. Your accent is terrible when you’re awake. I doubt even the Gods could understand it when you’re asleep.”

She looks outraged and immediately starts pummeling his arm with half-hearted fists.

“You absolute scoundrel! I’ll have you know that my pronunciation is-”

“Dreadful. You speak through your nose. But your reading skills are, I’ll grant you, quite impressive.”

She smacks him one last time but then leans against him and sighs. The wind shifts, and for a moment their hair is tangled together. He puts his arm behind her back to brace her, and she sags completely into him, subdued.

“Do you really think he’s gone?” she murmurs.

“Do you remember the words to kill him?”

She hesitates and then nods.

“Then I wouldn’t worry about it.”

* * *

 

They leave at dawn, all more exhausted than they’re willing to admit. O’Connell leads them, and Ardeth hangs behind, watching Evy as she slumps in her seat. He urges his camel forward and pulls up beside her.

 “Would you feel better if I told you this was your destiny?”

She manages not to roll her eyes, but he hears it in her voice.

“I must have been terrible in my past life to get this kind of destiny.”

“My people have spent three thousand years preparing to defeat the creature. I thought I had failed when you woke him. I thought I had stood by and let an unstoppable evil be unleashed on the world. But we stopped him. We defeated him. We lived in fear for three thousand years, fear of the inevitable. And we survived. It was Imhotep’s destiny to be cursed and woken; maybe it was your destiny to destroy him.”

She still looks disbelieving. “I’m not sure I believe in destiny.”

O’Connell shouts over his shoulder. “And you don’t believe in curses either, remember?”

This time she does roll her eyes, and Ardeth moves to fall back and give her space, but she reaches out and stops him. He stays beside her for the rest of the ride in thoughtful silence.

Hamunaptra, or what’s left of it, is silent and still. Ardeth himself has patrolled these ruins a thousand times, and several more since they destroyed what was left. It seems no more haunted than any other ruined city. O’Connell and Evelyn both seem wary as they pick their way through, but Ardeth feels at ease. Hamunaptra is a tomb, but so is the entire desert, one way or another.

The legends of Seti and Hamunaptra were true, and the few ruins that existed before have disappeared without a trace. The only thing left is the top of the statue of Anubis, and Ardeth knows when to tread the thin line between coincidence and fate. O’Connell hangs back, glaring at the god with distrust, but Evy marches right up to it, chin set forward and hands balled at her sides. The leveling of the city has brought Evy eye to eye with the statue, and she leans in much closer than he would have, almost nose to nose. The wind is harsher now, without the ruins to shield them, and Evy’s hair twists about her face, but again she ignores it. The God’s eyes are blank, vacant, and the part of Ardeth that knows it’s just a statue can’t help but wonder if they banished the gods when they banished the creature.

“I’m not afraid.” She says it matter of factly, and she seems to mean it. She leans forward on her tip-toes, whispering in the god’s ear.

Both he and O’Connell look away, some instinct telling him that this is a private moment. It seems uncharacteristic of her. Too superstitious for a librarian who prides herself on knowledge and lives for facts. But the O’Connell’s both seem different here. None of the brashness or arrogance he remembers from their first encounter.

The gun in O’Connell’s hands seems more out of habit than confidence, like he finally understands that there are powers beyond their comprehension, that there are certain situations you can’t shoot your way out of. It feels suspiciously like respect. Hard-earned, begrudgingly given respect to the powers of old. It’s a respect that’s been ingrained into Ardeth since birth, but one they’ve stumbled into. It’s been a humbling experience for all of them.  

He understands now, why Evelyn relentlessly hounds his people for their knowledge, why O’Connell is so willing to trade his shotgun for a desert-made sword. Why they stayed in their odd orbit so aggressively. The Creature caught them unaware, and they weren’t going to be surprised again. Evelyn steps away from the statue and walks back to them, back ramrod straight. O’Connell shoulders his gun and straightens up in response to the determined look on her face.

“You wanna dig him up?”

Ardeth knows by his tone that he would if it’s what she wanted. She shakes her head.

“I’d rather blow the place up all over again,” she replies, and Ardeth glances at O’Connell who looks as surprised as he feels. She sees the looks on their faces, and she quickly adds, “figuratively. Obviously. I mean to burn down something of this kind of historical significance would not only be a travesty but irresponsible-”

O’Connell relaxes, somewhere between amused and disappointed. He puts away the stick of dynamite he had already pulled out. He slings his gun over his shoulder and heads towards the camels. They got what they came for. He wonders where they’ll go or if they’ll come back with him. He wonders if he should ask. But of course, Evelyn makes the decision before he can even consider the options.

“Well, let’s not stand about all day, shall we?”

O’Connell stops to look at her, confused.

“Where’d you have in mind?”

“Out.”

O’Connell shoots a bewildered look at Ardeth who shrugs, just as confused.

“We’re in the middle of the desert, Evy. It really doesn’t get much more out than that.”

Evelyn turns back from where she’s trying to mount her camel in what he assumes is a ladylike manner. She huffs and hikes her skirts up, and O’Connell looks momentarily distracted as she folds and tucks the fabric into some complicated looking substitute for pants. Ardeth gives her as much privacy as he can, but her legs are hard to ignore as she marches up to O’Connell, hands on her hips and chin tilted up in a way that signals nothing but trouble. O’Connell looks appropriately apprehensive, and Ardeth wonders who actually caused the trouble in Thebes.

“It’s a metaphor, Rick.” She brings her hands up and half-heartedly attempts to smooth out his collar. 

“Do you remember the night I first kissed you?”

“Almost kissed,” he amends.

She moves her hands up to his face.

“Do you remember what I said to you?”

He peers down at her.

“Do you remember what you said? You were pretty drunk-”

She ignores him. “I said that I wasn’t a treasure seeker. That I’m not a gunfighter, and that’s true. But I was wrong about not being an explorer. I’m not going back to the library, Rick. I’m going out, anywhere and everywhere, and I want you to come with me.” 

O’Connell is silent as he reaches down and kisses the palms of her hands. He moves to help her mount the camel but she brushes by him and moves to stand in front of Ardeth. She seems almost shy, and where she had been aggressively staring O’Connell down, she’s glancing up at him through her lashes.

“I want you to come too, if you’d like. I think it’d be good for you. And I mean good for us as well, obviously. You’ve seen the kind of trouble we get into without you around.”

He realizes too late that he’s being sweetened up and that it’s working.

“Well, I’ve heard about it.”

Evelyn smiles and moves closer. There’s a look on O’Connell’s face that says he might be laughing at him, but he doesn’t say anything--just keeps his eyes on Ardeth’s face. 

“You’re bored, Ardeth,” she says, and he’s not sure what he’s more distracted by -- the way she says his name or the notion that boredom is the reason why he feels so restless. “Come with us. We both want you-”

“Evy,” O’Connell snaps. She glances over her shoulder at him, and they have a moment of silent arguing before Evelyn turns back to him. She steps back, and he wonders why she got so close in the first place. “Come if you want, stay if you don’t, no skin off my nose,” she says abruptly, accent so unbearably posh that O’Connell doesn’t even try to hide his eye roll.

“But don’t be surprised when you get a telegram from Cairo saying that my body’s been found in a desecrated tomb, riddled with bullet holes, some other supernatural horror unleashed on a city-”

Ardeth holds up a hand. “Are you riddled with bullets or is the desecrated tomb?”

She thinks for a moment. “Either. Or both.”

“And where am I?” O’Connell asks, outraged.

“Prison. Obviously.”

“Wait, did I shoot you in this scenario?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We were exploring the tomb for academic pursuits where we were then interrupted by some rather unscrupulous characters, we get in over our heads, and there’s an alarming amount of gunfire, and tragically I am caught in the middle.”

“Is that what happened in Thebes?”

“No.”

“Essentially.”

They answer simultaneously, and Ardeth watches as they glare and snipe at each other. They’re too busy to notice him laughing, and the staring contest quickly devolves into play fighting, and Ardeth looks back at the ruins as he thinks. Boredom. It had honestly never occurred to him. So simple. There had been a routine and a purpose and now it was gone. It made sense. But now what? There would always be some secret to guard, his people to protect, and being a med-jai was an honor and a duty. Never a burden. But he wouldn’t be the first med-jai to go on sabbatical, and he wouldn’t be the last.

God, his sister was going to be unbearable.

He looks back in time to see O’Connell dump Evelyn gracelessly into the sand. She sputters indignantly and throws a handful of dirt at him, and he returns the favor in waves, covering her in sand with a well-aimed kick.

He stands in front of them. “If I wanted to watch children misbehave, I could just stay in the village.”

“You watched her start it,” O’Connell points out, and Ardeth shoots him the most disbelieving look he can muster.

“So you’re coming with us then?” Evelyn asks, beaming up at him from the ground.

“It would be cruel to unleash the two of you alone on the people of Egypt.”

“The eleventh plague,” O’Connell muses, while Evelyn hauls herself up, brushing off as much sand as she can.

“An apt descriptor,” he replies. “Besides, someone will need to teach Evelyn how to shoot straight.”

The smirk drops off of O’Connell’s face, and Ardeth doesn’t bother hide his own.

“I seem to remember shooting that sword of yours right out of your hands the first time we met.”

Ardeth shrugs. “Luck.”

O’Connell just gapes at him, half-smiling, and Evelyn pats him consolingly on the shoulder as she pushes past him.

“Excellent. On that note, let’s move out, shall we?”

She moves towards his camel, pulling it down to kneeling height before throwing a leg over and smoothly settling into the saddle. She looks at Ardeth expectantly, patting the space behind her. Ardeth turns to O’Connell, questioning. O’Connell doesn’t even hesitate.

“Oh no, she’s all yours. It’s your turn. Have fun, buddy.”

O’Connell stalks by him, muttering, “luck my ass”, and he doesn’t wait before swinging up onto one of the camels and leading the other away. Ardeth rolls his eyes and climbs into the saddle behind Evelyn. She’s still as he reaches around her for the reins, but she leans back into him as they start to move. He urges the camel forward to catch up with O’Connell who salutes as they pass.

“Where do you want to go first?” he yells, struggling to be heard over the wind. He has to lean in closer to hear her answer.  

“Home first. I need pants.”

He takes a moment to mourn the loss of her bare legs which are tucked in neatly beside his own.

“And then where?”

She laughs, tossing her head back, and grabs the reins from him.

“We’ll toss a coin!”

He has to grab her waist to keep his seat as they pick up speed. It doesn’t occur to him until the tents are in sight that she had referred to the camp as home.

He’s right. His sister finds him as he’s packing, and somehow she’s even more unbearable than he was expecting.

 


End file.
